WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Vladimir Putin has little choice but to withdraw from eastern Ukraine in order to stem the financial crisis that is spinning out of control in his country.

Western sanctions, the drop in oil prices, and crony capitalism in Russia have combined to create a “perfect storm” in Russian financial markets.

Dramatic efforts by the Russian central bank to stop the falling ruble have so far failed. It has revived memories of the 1998 financial crisis.

“What can Putin do? He can’t reform [the economy.] He’s stuck. The only think he can do is to stop the financial sanctions by withdrawing from eastern Ukraine,” said Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute.

Andy Kuchins, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that Putin’s “only rational response” would be to find some face-saving way to withdraw from eastern Ukraine.

It was certainly a possibility that Putin would respond aggressively by increasing his activities in Ukraine “or even elsewhere.”

Analysts said that capital controls seemed to be the next logical step for Russia.

But Aslund said capital controls will not work. “Russians are far too smart to be influenced by capital controls,” he said.

In a meeting with reporters in London early Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Western sanctions could be removed quickly if Russia stepped back in Ukraine.

He said Russia had made some “constructive moves’ in the last days in war-torn country.

“Our hope is that in the days ahead we can get a clear, defined path by all parties, where everybody understands what each is doing and living up to agreements and in moving to de-escalate this situation,” Kerry said.

“And I am confident that as rapidly as that can happen, you will see Europe and the United States respond with respect to the sanctions that are in place today,” the Secretary of State added.

The White House announced Tuesday President Barack Obama will sign a bill that would allow him to slap tough new sanctions on Russia.

The bill gives Obama the “flexibility” he needs to deal with Russia, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

But Kuchins said that the legislation does not compel Obama to put new sanctions in place.

Christian tourism to Israel 201319 May 2014The year 2013 was Israel’s record year for incoming tourism with 3.54 million visitor entries. Christians represented more than half (53%) of all incoming tourists. During the first three months of 2014, this trend has continued.Christmas tree in Nazareth

Christmas tree in NazarethCopyright: Dana Friedlander, courtesy Ministry of Tourism(Communicated by the Ministry of Tourism)

The year 2013 was Israel’s record year for incoming tourism with 3.54 million visitor entries. During the first three months of 2014, this trend has continued, with about 775,000 visitors entering Israel, 3% more than the same period in 2013.

In 2013, Christians represented more than half (53%) of all incoming tourists (those staying more than one night), 96% of day visitors and 78% of cruise visitors. In total, over two million Christians visited Israel in 2013, about 60% of the 3.54 million total visitors. Visitors includes one-day and cruise visitors. Tourists refers to those staying more than one night.

Of these Christian tourists, about a half were Catholic (49%); 20% were Protestants (the majority Evangelical ); 28% were Orthodox (mainly Russian Orthodox) and 7% were from other Christian denominations.

About a million (40%) of these Christian tourists defined themselves as pilgrims; about 30% said they were in Israel for sight-seeing and touring and the remainder for other reasons.

You make a statement an play the victim card about Israel and I respond that it does not fit the facts. It is Israeli playing the perm-victim when Israel has morphed into the victimizer. My facts support my argument. You deflect with petty nonsense because when the facts are examined, you lose.

Hamas has killed 18 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, a day after Israel killed three of the group's top military commanders in an airstrike on a house in southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and a Hamas website said.

A Gaza security official said the first batch involved 11 people who were killed early on Friday at the Gaza City police headquarters.

Six more were killed later in the day in a public execution in a central Gaza square, according to a Hamas website and witnesses cited by Reuters news agency.

Three suspected collaborators were also killed on Thursday.

The victims, their heads covered and hands tied, were shot dead by masked gunmen dressed in black in front of a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque after prayers, witnesses and al-Majd, a pro-Hamas website, said.

Now I wonder, SHOULD the IDF do that to the captured Hamas members in occupied gaza? That would cause a lot of terror...

The year 2013 was Israel’s record year for incoming tourism with 3.54 million visitor entries. Christians represented more than half (53%) of all incoming tourists. During the first three months of 2014, this trend has continued.

Jack HawkinsWed Dec 17, 09:37:00 AM ESTHamas is the same as the Haganah

Jack, as someone that has admitted to his own personal involvement with terror and murder (your public confessions of contract killing civilians for the USA in Central America) one could think you'd have an insight about who and what terror is.

However your long history of Jew hatred, Israel and Zionism bashing really points to you having an agenda,.

And as someone with your sorted past, one must take into account your "history" reading anything you write.

Face the truth Jack, you being a self admitted "hired gun" who made "hits" on men, women and babies in Central America and now openly is hostile to Israel and supports Hamas does make you quite the "player"...

The readers of JACK HAWKINS are finding out what kind of person you are....

As long as your campaign is all about me, "O"rdure, than my content wins.

You authenticate the authenticity of the message with the ad hominem.

I realised that an ad hominem attack often is an important signal indicating that the attacker is wrong, very wrong indeed. It is nothing else than an open admission by “the other side” that they have no more reasonable arguments, that they are resorting to unreasonable notions, and that they have lost not just the plot but also the debate.

In other words, being personally attacked in this way is a compliment and an unfailing sign of victory – and, if that is so, we should be proud of every single ad hominem attack we get after a well-reasoned debate.

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish forces launched an operation to retake the town of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq early on Wednesday after heavy coalition air strikes on Islamic State positions in the area overnight, Kurdish security officials said.

If the peshmerga succeed in recapturing the town, it would open up a corridor to Sinjar mountain, where hundreds of minority Yazidis have been besieged by IS militants since August.

It would also be a symbolic victory for the Kurds, whose reputation as fearsome warriors was bruised after Islamic State overpowered the peshmerga in Sinjar and killed or captured hundreds of Yazidis.

"At 8:00 this morning the ground offensive began to liberate Sinjar town," said one official in the region's Security Council, adding that coalition planes had pounded the area for several hours beforehand.

"There's evidence that a lot of IS fighters abandoned their weapons and fled the area."

Several Kurdish security officials gave similar accounts.

U.S. President Barack Obama cited the duty to prevent an impending massacre of Yazidis by Islamic State militants as one of the main reasons for authorizing the first air strikes in Iraq this summer.

Since then, Kurdish peshmerga forces have regained most of the ground they lost to Islamic State in northern Iraq, but Sinjar's awkward geography - out on a limb to the west, has made it difficult to penetrate.

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- As Pakistan started three days of national mourning Wednesday, the Taliban said they targeted a school that mostly admits soldiers' children because the students aspired to follow in their fathers' footsteps and target militants.

The American people have repeatedly answered the question. The Congress has generously, albeit foolishly, responded with money. You do not like the answer. There is comfort in the EU, though, other than the Germans.

Two-thirds of Palestinians say they are afraid to criticize Mahmoud Abbas…

"We face an autocratic regime that doesn't believe in any freedoms, in freedom of unions or freedom of speech," said Jihad Harb, a writer and Fatah member. "The people are now terrified. They don't speak up, fearing reprisal."

"If you look around and see what is going on in the Arab world, you realize how much freedom we enjoy here," Assaf said.

Most Palestinians in the West Bank appear to disagree, according to a poll published last week by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Sixty-six percent said they believe they cannot criticize Abbas without fear, according to the survey among 1,270 respondents, with an error margin of 3 percentage points…

Play silly games, win silly prizes. Hamas launched indiscriminate attacks against Israeli cities. In the following war, civilians were killed. That is NOT terrorism. Churchill would have fire bombed the bastards.

Merkel issued a public statement through a spokesperson condemning the protest “in the strongest terms.” “There is no place in Germany for Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, hatred of foreigners or racism,” the statement continued.

Merkel did stop short of accusing them of making naughty faces at babies and eating puppies.

More news on methane burps on Mars; the exciting 'Rufus Organism' discovered?

December 17, 2014NASA rover finds compelling evidence of life on MarsBy Rick Moran

Every year or two, NASA announces that one of its probes has discovered evidence of life on Mars. The spectacularly successful missions of rovers and orbital laboratories have begun to pry open the secrets of Mars's past and have offered tantalizing clues of life that existed in the past and exists today.

But they are nothing more than that – clues to the possibility of life. Other explanations, less exciting than the discovery of life on Mars, have been offered for many of these claims.

Now comes compelling evidence of microbial life on Mars. The rover Curiosity, exploring the bottom of a crater where it is believed water was present a billion years ago, recorded huge "spikes" in methane gas – 10 times the background level of methane in the atmosphere – strongly suggesting that microbes are present near the surface.

Independent:

Mysterious spikes of methane that cannot easily be explained by geology or other theories have been found by an instrument on the robot, which landed on the planet in 2012. Scientists can’t be sure what is causing the spikes, but it is possible that it could be very small, bacteria-like living organisms.

If the gas is coming from living microbes then it would mark one of the biggest discoveries in history. On Earth, 95% of methane comes from microbial organisms, but there are many non-biological processes that can also generate the gas.

Scientists have said that the rover now has to test and re-test the possibility of life, ahead of an unmanned mission in 2020 that would look for the source of the methane.

Previous satellite observations have detected unusual plumes of methane on the planet, but none as extraordinary as the sudden "venting" measured by Curiosity at the 96-mile wide Gale Crater, where evidence suggests water once flowed billions of years ago.

[...]

Nasa reported last year that that Gale Crater contained the remains of an ancient freshwater lake where there may have been a hospitable environment for life in the distant past.

The laboratory onboard the rover has been sniffing methane in the atmosphere a dozen times in the last 12 months. In late 2013 and early 2014, the amount of methane flared up, and then receded.

At a press conference yesterday at the American Geophysical Union's convention in San Francisco, Nasa scientists said that besides living microbes, other possible explanations for the methane include the Sun's rays degrading organic material left behind by meteors.

But that explanation, they added, still relies on the original material being deposited by an object that would have measured several metres across and left a large crater - no sign of which was visible.

The scientists said other theories, such as volcanic deposits trapped in ice called clathrates, were ruled out by the short time-scale of the spikes.

NASA scientists have been very circumspect in their claims, having been burned back in the 1990s when they let President Clinton make an announcement that evidence of life had been found in a Martian meteor that landed near the South Pole. It turns out that the evidence was less than convincing, considering that natural mineral processes could have been responsible.

But their caution is tinged with excitement. It's probable that no robot explorer will ever be able to prove beyond a doubt that life exists on Mars. That job will be left for the first humans who travel to the Red Planet sometime in the next 20-25 years.

A majority does accept one of the committee’s key criticisms: Fifty-four percent think the CIA did in fact mislead the White House, Congress and the public about its activities. At the same time, four in 10 of them also say the agency was justified in doing so. A net total of just 33 percent think both that the CIA misled, and did so without justification.

Those are pretty decisive margins that make clear that the public doesn't think much at all of the torture report. The public is able to see through the posturing Democrats, who cite their superior morality for releasing this report. It's a partisan stinker, and the public senses that.

Even among Democrats, 40% believe that useful intelligence was gleaned from the EIT program. Why this facet of the program is questioned is a mystery. If torture didn't "work," it would have been abandoned thousands of years ago as an interrogation technique. The poll showed that:

... looking ahead, most Americans are unwilling to rule out torture of suspected terrorists. Fifty-eight percent say it can sometimes or even often be justified. Nineteen percent say it can be justified, albeit just rarely, while 20 percent rule it out entirely.

Americans tend to frown on these exercises in self-flagellation. Airing our laundry – dirty or otherwise – garners very little support. Liberals may want to consider that the next time they want to embarrass their political opponents by releasing details of classified programs.

Hatred of Women on the March in IranDecember 17, 2014 by Majid Rafizadeh

The hatred, misogyny and injustice against Iranian women has continued to ratchet up under the office of the so-called moderate president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani.

After a series of acid attacks against young women in the city of Esfahan, the Iranian parliament (Majlis) has passed a new bill, which would allow Basij, the governmental volunteer militia, to go around in the streets and give verbal warning to those Iranian women who do not comply with the government’s Islamic dress code.

More recently, stabbing women has become another sign of increased violence. A suspect was recently arrested for stabbing six women in city of Fars in Iran, reportedly for wearing an improper hijab. One of the women was stabbed in the stomach. According to Saham News, the suspect is the son of a Basij Commander from the village of Ghotbabad.

The Basij, which is supervised by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, intervenes in the day to day activities of ordinary people, spying on individuals, and attempting to impose the ideological and Islamist doctrine of the Iranian government.

When I used to live in Iran, I, like many Iranian people, witnessed how young girls would be dragged into police cars by the moral police for not complying with the government’s religious dress code. Showing some strands of hair or some part of the body in public can lead to arrest, imprisonment, and fines.

The Vigilante Law to Impose Hijab and Dress Code

Under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian parliament has also introduced a bill referred to as the “Plan to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice.” Apparently, all of these human rights abuses and discrimination against women are part of promoting virtue in the perception of the ruling clerics in power.

Nevertheless, what is crucial to point out is that discrimination against Iranian women and the egregious human rights abuses against them are at the core of the cleric political power. In other words, these human rights abuses — such as restricting women’s freedoms, imposing the hijab on them, encouraging them to stay at home and raise children, forbidding them from participating in sports or even watching some sports events such as volleyball — are cemented in the state’s institutional structure as well as in the Islamic Republic’s constitution.

Secondly, women are being utilized as a crucial tool and platform to define the country as Islamic. Imposing dress codes and the hijab on women gives the clerical political institution unique character ideologically. Walking in public and watching millions of women across the country being forced to wear the hijab and cover their hair strengthens the image of the country as being Islamic. It also makes it stands out immediately in comparison to other Muslim countries, and it significantly ratchets up the ideological foundation and Shiite agenda of the Islamic Republic.

Third, forcing women to comply with a dress code is the manifestation of the state’s power. Technically, this is referred to as biopower of the state, which is applied in order to homogenize the population, immediately find those who dissent, make women compliant, subservient, and remind women everyday that the state is in power of even their basic activities such as wearing clothes, listening to music, and watching sports. As Michel Foucault states, biopower is a political strategy. “By this I mean a number of phenomena that seem to me to be quite significant, namely, the set of mechanisms through which the basic biological features of the human species became the object of a political strategy, of a general strategy of power.”

Fourth, marginalization of Iranian women by the state and depriving them of their basic and fundamental rights is a method to treat almost half of the population as second-class citizens. Subduing women, repressing them, and ensuring that women are controlled by their male guardians and state apparatuses, promotes the patriarchal character of the system.

Fifth, the increasing misogynistic laws and hatred against Iranian women will continue whether the president of the Islamic Republic is a reformist, moderate, hardliner, etc. This is due to the fact, all Iranian presidents believe in the fundamental institution of the Islamic Republic and they totally accept the superiority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, misogyny and hatred against women has not halted courageous and brave Iranian women from fighting inequality and the repression against them. Several female leaders and formidable women’s movements in Iran continue to resist the repressive apparatuses even though they face imprisonment, execution, and torture. Their efforts have produced powerful women such as Shirin Ebadi, the Noble Prize Laureate, and Maryam Rajavi, the human rights and political activist, and the president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

As the repression against women continue in the Islamic Republic, their resistance grows deeper, and their stance firmer. Our responsibility is to chart efficient approaches in order to give a voice to these women and assist them in their struggle for combating extremism carried out under the name of religion, the ruling cleric’s version and the manipulation of Shia Islam.

If a nuke goes off in an American city 100% minus one (Quirk) will feel torture is justified to try and prevent a repeat.

Doubtful.

The hick from Idaho suffers from the democratic fallacy seeking near full consensus under the illogical view that a majority opinion can somehow justify that which can't be justified, not on moral or for that matter even practical grounds.

I may be in the minority, as noted in the polls Allen put up; however, I won't be alone (as also noted in the same polls). Now, pissants in Idaho and other sheeple will be pissing their pants and begging the government to 'do whatever it takes' to protect us just as they did after 911, but there will still be people who realize that torture is a dull and unproductive tool for gathering actionable intelligence, not to mention, that it goes against the values and mores, the very ideals that this country was founded on.

It amazes me that some candyass punk who is unwilling to say that he would actually do the deed, that is, get down in the muck and blood and actually torture some bloody mess chained to a wall rather than farm that deed out to the government, or some 3rd world country, or a couple of schizoid psychiatrists out to make a buck, continues to bring the subject up.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Russia has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to attend a May ceremony marking the end of World War Two, in what would be Kim's first foreign visit since taking the helm of the reclusive state in 2011

I think I could get through torturing some of those ISIS folks who beheaded the kids if I knew they had another plot going to do more. Yes, I think I could do that. Guess I really wouldn't know until the time came, though.

I doubt the procedure would be much like this - in the muck and blood and actually torture some bloody mess chained to a wall - though.

Quirk, there's old wisdom that says sometimes when fighting the Devil one must take some plays from the Devil's playbook.

I doubt the procedure would be much like this - in the muck and blood and actually torture some bloody mess chained to a wall - though.

Right, Bobbo, I'm sure you would have a medical team standing by and conduct the session in a clean room. I'm sure that as you are cranking up the chain to put the guy in the stress position you would occasionally ask if it hurt too much or if he needed his diaper changed. No doubt housekeeping would be called to clean up any fluids that might be scattered around.

Deuce used to say 'a little water up the nose' before he freaked out...

Who gives a shit. Now you are offering an appeal to authority? This has nothing to do with Deuce. What we are talking about now is personal and intimate, just you and the guy chained to the wall and what level you choose to go to.

I wouldn't argue that point with you. However, no matter how grey the world, at some point you reach a decision point that defines you, where you place that line and whether or not you step over it defines you.

I think I could get through torturing some of those ISIS folks who beheaded the kids if I knew they had another plot going to do more.

That about sums it up Bob - you will never get that situation thus you will never torture - You would have to know he had beheaded kids AND had a plot to do more before you'd torture....laughable except idiots like you take that and farm it out to someone else while you look the other way.

... since Sept. 23, the allies have accounted for nearly 40% of close air support, interdiction and escort sorties, and 25% of total missions flown. “Many of those sorties that conduct dynamic targeting in support of ground forces require specialized capability, and frequently they do not result in a necessary strike on [ISIS] forces, equipment or facilities,” Gary Boucher, spokesman for the campaign, dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve, said Tuesday.

U.S. and allied warplanes have launched a barrage of airstrikes over northern Iraq in a demonstration of American willingness to intensify air power against the Islamic State when local forces mount an organized attack.

The U.S. military said in a statement that allied planes conducted a total of 61 strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq from Dec. 15-17, including 45 strikes in support of Kurdish peshmerga troops who are fighting to reclaim areas around Sinjar and Zumar in northern Iraq.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a military operation, said the strikes aimed to help Kurdish peshmerga forces as they launched their operation to oust militants from strategic areas.

“This clearing operation is an important step in disrupting ISIL’s freedom of movement and ability to conduct resupply operations in vicinity of Zumar and Sinjar,” the official told The Washington Post, using an acronym for the extremist group.

The overnight strikes hit militant checkpoints, fighting positions and equipment, the statement said. The scale of the attacks is noteworthy in a campaign that has been characterized by U.S. restraint in the sky. In contrast, U.S. and allied planes launched a total of 42 strikes in Iraq during the entire week beginning Dec 8.

U.S. military commanders have suggested that they would amplify the strikes across Iraq when Iraqi military forces, struggling to reorganize against the well-armed militants, can advance against the Islamic State.

A Kurdish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kurdish leaders and intelligence officials had been in touch with U.S. Central Command about trying to retake Sinjar, the site of a standoff between militants and minority Yazidis this summer. The area is difficult to subdue due to its proximity to militant strongholds of Tal Afar and Mosul, which Iraqi forces are not expected to attempt to recapture until next spring.

Kurdish officials said that peshmerga fighters had broken through Islamic State front lines and forced the militants out of some areas.

Although President Barack Obama's administration announced the Syrian air strikes three months ago as a joint campaign by Washington and its Arab allies, nearly 97 percent of the strikes in December have been carried out by the United States alone, according to U.S. military data provided to Reuters.

The data shows that U.S. allies have carried out just two air strikes in Syria in the first half of December, compared with 62 by the United States...

Syria, on the other hand, is considered off-limits by many allies, particularly those in Europe, because of the Syrian government's public opposition to the U.S.-led air strikes.

"It's legal issues. It's concerns that our European partners and others have about where Syria is going," one U.S. official said. "So the reality is, even though we say the problem knows no border, by definition there's a distinction."

Re: A user, Yair Rosenberg, tweeted, "SCANDAL: Benjamin Netanyahu lights the menorah WRONG, using a separate candle instead of the shamash #impeach". The user had also tweeted the photo of Netanyahu.

It is not a menorah; it is a hanukiah. A menorah (used in the Temple for at least 500+ years before the Maccabees) has seven equal stems. A hanukiah, according to tradition has eight level stems and and a centrally elevated stem. During Hanukkah, 44 candles will be used.

"Local police and anti-Islamic State fighters tried to repel insurgents for five days, but lack of support and ammunition had forced them to leave their positions in central Baiji to the militants, said Saad Thahir, a Baiji council member."

No Iraqi Army/No Air Support.

If the locals want to go it on their own, they're on their own. For awhile, at least.

There is a giant, multi-sided negotiation going on between the Iraqi Government, the local Sunni Tribes, and the United States regarding Government Support, Sunni Cooperation, and the formation of Provincial "National Guards." The U.S. won't bomb in situations where there is no agreement.

We're not the least bit interested in killing the Daesh just to have the situation revert to the way it was before the headcutters showed up.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is boosting its presence in Iraq’s restive Al-Anbar province in a bid to turn Baghdad’s attention away from the liberation of Mosul, a senior Iraqi military commander said on Wednesday.

...

Abu Akram Al-Namrawi, a senior member of the Albunimr tribe, criticized what he said was Baghdad’s failure to respond to the siege of his tribe, and its wider failure to effectively combat ISIS in Anbar.

The Tribes and the Government can piss at each other all they want, but we're not getting our planes involved in areas where they haven't made an agreement (with the exception, of course, of situations where vital infrastructure - Dams, Oil Fields, Refineries, etc. - are involved.)

While these issues have been raised before, some political leaders said that a push to tackle Iraq’s sectarian crisis had been given added urgency by the rise of ISIS and the threat of the country’s disintegration along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, Iraqi Communist Party politburo member Raed Fahmy said unlike the past, the present political conditions in Iraq encourage national reconciliation efforts.

“National reconciliation this time seems to be more of a reality than just mere words,” he said.

As Assad's position in Syria continues to erode and the "Allies" demur from "illegal" interference, IS may shift more assets to Iraq. At this point and for probably 2-3 years more, it has little to fear from a US trained and backed "moderate" opposition.

The Iraqi's are banking on the "Great Spring Offensive of 1915" to deal IS a mortal blow in the ground war. Trenches are being constructed with the certainty of holding back the tide. This time they will succeed, they are confident. Of course, IS also gets a vote. Sometime between late March and late June either victory or continued stalemate will be obvious to all. Will the "Iraqi Army", ghosts and all, advance, stand, and fight? It is possible, but, then, so is rain. Time will tell.

At sunset on the 4th of July, I will have before me a large stein of frothy German beer. If the Iraqis succeed in defeating IS, I will drink to their good fortune with cheer. If they fail to carry off the offensive, I will chuckle and still enjoy the beer. Since I have no dog in the fight, being a moral relativist, I will savor the day whatever the outcome; remembering, that come spring 1916, another great offensive will be in the works, certain to make the grade with a little tweaking.

Actually, being an American, you do have a dog in the fight. Well anyway, for as long as the US has troops in the field (so to speak). IMO.

You posit a rather cavalier attitude but I doubt you mean it. Rather than moral relativism what you seem to be describing is Paine's description of the summer soldier. You talk of Iraq being successful or failing but in fact since Obama's decision to fight IS in Iraq our fates are locked and if Iraq is successful the US is successful and if it fails the US shares in that failure.

While some here express a feverish optimism about our efforts there, I don't. However, if we start assuming moral relativism in fighting a war against an enemy like IS we are in trouble. In my opinion, of course.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.